


Leaves of Willow and of Adder's Tongue

by angevin2



Category: Richard II - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angry Sex, Angst, Canon Bisexual Character, Dubious Consent, First Time, Little Velvet Hats, M/M, Masochism, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-29
Updated: 2010-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-06 19:09:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angevin2/pseuds/angevin2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward is buzzed. Richard is depressed. And then they done sex. There is angst. And Keatsy undertones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaves of Willow and of Adder's Tongue

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to **speak_me_fair**, _grande dame_ of all things Aumerle. Um, I hope you don't mind that I dedicated my dodgiest fic ever to you. Thanks also to **gileonnen** and **lareinenoire** for their input and encouragement. This fic is set a couple of months after ["Nocturnal"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/42919), which is actually made pretty obvious within the fic, but I thought I'd say so anyway.

Twelfth Night had been relatively subdued for the Perrivale family in recent years: there had been nobody sufficiently out of mourning to host any gathering tastefully. It had been subdued _this_ year because Edmund York was the only one out of mourning long enough to be a socially acceptable host -- apart from Thomas, but that didn't bear thinking on -- and he was uncomfortable enough with everyday levels of social engagement.

Richard has been conspicuously absent, even for someone hardly out of formal mourning; since the fire at Shene House he has become, quite uncharacteristically, a virtual recluse. And so when Edward York leaves his father's house, some time after one o'clock, he thinks it would be a good idea to call on him; it is very late, but he knows Richard is accustomed to keep late hours.

When the footman shows him into the library, Richard is draped over the end of a green velvet sofa, wearing a grey velvet jacket that matches his eyes perfectly -- Edward knows this even though they aren't currently visible, as Richard has his arm thrown over his face in a vaguely abandoned-looking kind of way. His crimson smoking cap sits askew atop his curly hair -- Richard doesn't even smoke (tobacco); he just has an abiding interest in velvet hats. Edward casts a quick glance at the nearest end table and finds it empty of anything other than an old, well-thumbed volume with "THE POETICAL WORKS OF JOHN KEATS" printed in fading letters on the spine; inwardly, he breathes a sigh of relief.

"Abandoning the revels, I see?" Richard says, without looking up.

"We missed you this evening." Edward can't help feeling like he sounds more high-spirited than he actually is. Or rather that the feeling is entirely liquor-induced and that there is something wretchedly awful buzzing around underneath.

Richard looks up at him, very nearly incredulous, and almost laughs at that. "Oh, I'm sure of it," he says. "Someone needed something lit on fire, I assume?"

"That was -- " Edward breaks off his reassurance as he realizes in quick succession that Shene House is _still_, two months after the fact, a topic of disgusted or pitying if veiled comments, and that he is scarcely in a frame of mind to approach the matter tactfully. "Well," he finishes, "_I_ did, anyway."

Richard smiles -- Edward has the impression it may even be genuine -- and motions for Edward to come and sit beside him, taking his arm as he does so.

"You don't know what's good for you, Ned," he says.

...oh, God.

There is nothing in the world Edward wants more than a cigarette right now, except that Richard is holding his arm, and in order to get his cigarette case out he'd have to move and then Richard would probably let go of him, and that would be...terribly unfortunate. And then Richard takes off his hat and leans on Edward's shoulder, and that makes matters rather more difficult. He would hate to set Richard's hair on fire. It's very pretty hair, gold but with a coppery sheen thanks to the firelight.

...this is exactly why he needs a cigarette right now. Perhaps that would make his head stop spinning.

"You know, I'm thirty years old tomorrow," Richard says, seemingly out of nowhere. "Today, I suppose, if it's after midnight."

Edward checks his pocket-watch. "Nearly two o'clock."

"I suppose I should feel old," Richard continues. "'_Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita_,' and so on."

"What?" Edward knows nothing about Italian, but if Richard is going to start spouting off in it while leaning on him, he is bloody well going to know what he's talking about.

"Dante," Richard says. "'In the middle of our life's path,' it means. 'I found myself in a dark wood...'"

"Wouldn't the middle of life be thirty-five?" Edward asks, as much to keep Richard from reciting the entire Divine Comedy to him as anything.

Richard looks up at him, a hint of surprise on his face.

"So it is," he says, reclining back on Edward's shoulder. "I never really expected I'd live that long."

Edward can feel that increasingly-familiar closed-in feeling, where his hands and feet turn cold and his heart is seemingly trying to flee his body by way of his throat. He always feels it when Richard begins talking about death -- and he never seems to _stop._ As if to anchor him to the living world, he covers Richard's hand with his own, and their fingers intertwine. His hand feels strangely solid compared to Richard's, which is slender with long, delicate fingers, as though he's stepped out of a medieval painting. He swallows hard. "Don't talk like that," he says, trying for a light sort of reassurance, but achieving a slightly panicked quaver instead.

"Why shouldn't I talk like that?" Richard's tone is not sharp, though his words are; rather, he seems almost resigned in his melancholy. His thumb brushes back and forth across Edward's skin, from thumb to wrist and back again, a gesture that would seem seductive, as tiny as it is, if he appeared to have noticed it at all, and Edward shivers.

"It seems unconscionably cruel," Richard continues, "that a man should find perfect love twice in his life, and then lose them both. What kind of tyrannical God would do that to someone?"

It is more than Edward can bear. He withdraws his fingers from Richard's, and reaches up to touch him, tracing the sharp line of his jaw, and Richard turns his face upward. He is not _indiscreet_ about his dealings with men, certainly, but Edward knows enough to know there is no need for further inquiry. The room seems incredibly warm, and his head is swimming -- he can't possibly have been this drunk when he left his father's house; it must be Richard -- and then their lips touch and Richard is kissing him fiercely, his tongue sliding over Edward's, and all Edward can hear is his own blood rushing in his ears.

It's Richard who pulls away for air first, and Edward leans in to kiss along his jawline, and then his throat, his fingers winding in Richard's hair, and then Richard's hand is sliding up his thigh, oh _God_ \--

\-- and then Edward is struggling with the buttons on Richard's trousers, and Richard takes hold of his hands and draws back. His face is flushed, his eyes wide; his voice is thick as he asks Edward: "Shall we retire, then?"

Edward draws Richard to him for a lingering kiss. "I thought you'd never ask," he breathes against Richard's lips.

The number of stairs and the length of hallway between Richard's library and his bedroom seems absolutely endless, although it can't be that long -- Edward has wanted this for so much longer -- and they keep stopping to exchange kisses and caresses and somewhere in the back of Edward's brain he is amazed at how discreet Richard's household must be if he is accustomed to behave this way with others -- and then they're at the bedroom and nothing else matters, because his back is pressed to the door and Richard's lips are at his throat as they frantically undo each other's buttons and laces, casting aside jackets and shirts and trousers --

\-- he can feel Richard's skin warm against his, and his long hands trailing downwards; Edward's own fingers brush against Richard's soft inner thigh, and Richard gasps, his hands pausing at Edward's waist. Edward can barely manage enough breath to get out "Richard, _please_ \-- "

\-- and then Richard draws him toward the bed, and between ferocious kisses he whispers against Edward's skin: "There's one thing I want, Edward."

"Anything," Edward gasps, and means it.

Richard's grey eyes are dark with desire, his lips red and swollen. He is so beautiful that it aches.

"Make it hurt," he says.

Richard unclothed seems almost painfully frail; in the velvet jackets and brocade waistcoats he favors, he looks merely ordinarily thin, but now, standing naked before Edward, he appears as though he might break any minute, and perhaps that's what he wants, for someone to break him, and the thought that Edward should be the one to do it is like talons in his heart -- God, he has wanted Richard so badly, but _not this way_, and he can't, he can't do it -- the air is too thick, too hot, and almost before he knows it he backhands Richard across the mouth.

Richard's eyes are alight with something infernal, and his lips part -- his bottom lip bleeds a little. Edward cannot bear another moment of it. His own lips close on Richard's, blood-slick and metallic, and then he releases him and shoves him roughly onto the bed. Richard closes his eyes and tilts his head back, baring his throat, and stretches his arms wide, like an obscene mock-crucifix, and then Edward is upon him; Richard slides his thigh between Edward's, and his fair skin reddens under Edward's hands, fingers, teeth, as he gasps and writhes and arches his back -- Edward winds his fingers in Richard's hair and pulls hard, and Richard cries out a little and opens his eyes, and finally he's actually _looking_ at Edward, and he is _so_ close, his face flushed and desperate, and Edward can't hold back anymore, oh, _Christ_ \--

\-- his teeth sink into Richard's shoulder as he comes, and Richard groans, either in pain, pleasure, or frustration; Edward wants nothing more than to collapse now, but he can't just leave it there -- he pins Richard's arms down, because, God, if he wants it to hurt -- Richard twists beneath him, nearly in agony, arching his hips against Edward's until finally with a sharp cry he spends himself across Edward's thighs -- and then it's over and Edward lets his head fall onto Richard's chest, listening to his heartbeat slowly returning to normal, and Richard strokes his hair with disquieting gentleness.

The stillness seems less like peace than like death -- except that death presumably brings oblivion. Edward is all too conscious of what he's done; he has never been one to torment himself unduly for loving other men, but other men are not _Richard._ When Richard's hand stills on his back Edward rolls over, sitting up on the bed. Richard's color is beginning to return to normal, but his shoulders and chest are crossed with red welts; tomorrow, he will be terribly bruised -- but he has dozed off and his expression is content. Edward begins to feel that it is he and not Richard who will bear the marks of this encounter the longest.

He stands up, then, to gather his scattered clothes; he should leave, he knows, leave and never come back, but -- he puts on his shirt, and then returns to sit on the bed with his back towards Richard. The movement is enough to wake him, and he trails a hand down Edward's back, and up again -- even now, he can't help but shiver at Richard's touch.

"You were right," Edward says. "I don't know what's good for me."

The words should be sharp, and cruel, but his voice comes out all wrong. He can feel Richard take his hand away, hear him stir on the bed -- he cannot bear to look him in the face, after that, but shame compels him to turn around. Richard sits with his arms wrapped around his knees, a strangely childlike and vulnerable posture, and his expression is distant, brittle.

"But you know that I'm not," he says, and once again Edward feels that clenching in his heart -- not because he's wrong, but because he's _right,_ and because it doesn't seem to make one damned bit of difference. He moves closer to Richard.

"I don't care if you are or not," he says softly, and he takes Richard's hand. There are scars on his wrist, two lines running in parallel, thin and faint but still visible. Edward runs his thumb gently over one of them, and Richard closes his eyes, inhaling sharply; he seems frozen in place, now.

"Richard?" Edward says.

"You _should_ go," Richard says, his voice cold and frail as broken shards of ice. "I'll only break you, too. It's like a contagion. Everything I touch -- " he draws his hand back from Edward's, and when he speaks next his voice is a terrible flat veneer over a deep chasm. "I am _damaged,_ Edward. Do you see these?" He holds up his scarred wrists. "Attendants in lunatic asylums don't always take care with the restraints."

And suddenly so many things become clear. Edward remembers coming home from Eton at Christmas ten years ago, the keen, anxious disappointment when Richard was nowhere to be seen -- and his father telling him that Richard had suffered a nervous collapse and had gone off to Switzerland for treatment. (Henry Lancaster had murmured dourly that "He's lost his head over that fucking poof Vere, that's what's wrong with him.")

"I know, Richard -- " he says, moving closer. " -- I mean, I didn't, but -- well. 'Thou hast not half that power to do me harm as I have to be hurt.'"

Richard looks up at him, surprised. "You don't even like Shakespeare," he says.

Edward smiles. "No, I don't."


End file.
